A Different Path
by ijs1337
Summary: A series of drabbles, focusing on potential opportunities for characterization and all-around epicness I noticed as I've watched the series. First Chapter-Losing Control: In the final showdown with Amon, Korra ends the threat he presents in a way that relies far less on the whims of public opinion, and more on the furious outpouring of her newest skills as the Avatar.


**Note: So, I'm blazing through all of Avatar (I'm over halfway through Book 3 of Korra as of this writing, and I came into Korra immediately after finish The Last Airbender) and a few ideas about what I would have liked to see in/around the end of Book 1 hit me. And there were some other moments I got ideas for from Book 2. So, a few bits, ideas, and some thoughts and wistful wishes I had, is what this basically is. There might be some cohesion of events, but this is more me playing with events than trying to tell a story start-to-finish.**

**I do not own Avatar, nor any of the characters. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

A Different Path

Losing Control

**Secondary Note: Get the classic, Last Airbender Avatar State theme ready in another tab for full effect at a few key points. You'll see what I mean. **

Korra desperately tried to remember what little she could about fighting without bending. Right now, that was all she could do. Part of her didn't want to think about that, didn't want to accept it, but she had to. She couldn't bend, but she needed to do something. So she was going to do the only thing she still could.

Amon had his back to her, holding Mako up, twisting and contorting the firebender's body with jerks of his fingers. Korra ran at him, fist clenched, bringing it down, aiming for the back of Amon's head.

He spun around, Mako dropping to the floor in a heap. Amon moved, faster than Korra had ever seen anyone move, and slid out of the way of her punch. She kept moving, bringing a leg up, looking to drive her foot into his-

Amon tossed his hands to one side and Korra felt everything in her lurch violently as she was thrown against the wall. She struggled, but she could feel every ounce of her blood moving against her, gripped by Amon's bending. She thought she heard him growl before suddenly she was slammed against the opposite wall, up into the ceiling, into the floor, the walls again. She was starting to lose count of what he'd thrown her into and how many times he'd used each section of the hallway. Then, he stopped, let her hang in the air, hang by her blood, with the rest of her straining to succumb to gravity and touch the ground. She'd never thought simply floating could be so painful. Amon shifted his hands, moving them in a swirling motion, and she could feel her blood twisting and writhing in her veins.

A blast of fire shot from behind Amon and struck him on the shoulder, spinning him around. Korra fell to the floor, limp, and through the haze of pain, could just make our Mako, on his feet, flinging fire so precisely, so quickly, that Amon couldn't dodge it. Two bursts from punches got him in the chest, a long arc of flame spreading from a kick sent the bloodbender whirling, and a forceful blast straight to his masked face sent him staggering back. Mako leaped into the air, whirling, fire following his movements, streaking towards Amon.

The bloodbender thrust his hands out, and Mako froze in midair, his expression instantly shifting from one of fierce determination to one of agony. The flames trailing him bled away into embers. Amon began swirling and thrusting with his hands, Mako's limbs and body jerking and twisting violently. His face said he needed to scream, but his body, held by Amon's bending, wouldn't obey him. Amon slowed, and began moving more deliberately, turning his hands over each other again and again. Mako contorted even further, one arm turning around almost completely on its joint, his chest twisting one way while his waist went in the opposite direction. Korra could see one his feet bent at almost a right angle, was almost certain she could hear bones cracking over the swirling of blood. Mako's eyes were terrifyingly wide, a hoarse gurgling sound coming from his throat.

Korra tried to reach out to him, feeling her own blood again shift in her. She tried to say something, anything. Even the simplest 'No.' would have been enough for her, but she couldn't. She felt her once limp body, now slowly moving under a power that wasn't her, lift off the floor. She needed to stop Amon. She needed to save Mako. But she couldn't.

She couldn't…

* * *

Amon kept his attention on the firebender boy, further shifting his blood, looking to break him from within. He'd been content to just take his bending, but that was before the boy attacked him. Had perhaps come close to hurting him. He was paying the Avatar only the slightest attention. He'd taken her one strength. She wasn't-

What seemed to be a fireless explosion went off behind him, and he was thrown down the hall, slamming into the floor and rolling a few feet farther. He turned and looked as he got to his feet. The boy had dropped to the floor, a twisted, yet still living, mess. The Avatar…

"No." Amon said, more to himself than to anything. The Avatar was floating in a swirling vortex of air, her eyes clamped shut. Amon reached out, reached for her blood. He didn't know how she'd done this, but she wouldn't do anymore than she'd already done. Her face grimaced in pain and her body jerked, and for a second, Amon thought he could still win.

Then she tore her arms from the grasp of his bending, and her eyes snapped open. White light poured from her eye sockets, an expression of fury and contempt the likes of which Amon could never dream consumed her face. She threw one hand out towards him, and a torrent of wind swept down the corridor, tearing doors and sheets out of their frames, ripping the light fixtures from the ceiling, peeling the paint from the walls. It hit Amon like a freight truck, and yet carried on past and with him even as it pummeled him over and over. He could hear the wall behind him break as the wind struck it, and as it hurled him against it, it shattered into a thousand pieces that were carried with him.

* * *

The crowds outside watched in disbelief as Amon sailed through the air, carried on a blast of wind more powerful than any they had ever seen. They saw him crash into the harbor, saw him rise up on a swirling vortex of water, the scar that was truly paint washing away. They had just enough time to see him for what he was. Before the Avatar came after him.

She shot through the hole in the arena, air swirling beneath her feet and around the rest of her as though she were at the center of a miniature tornado, eyes glowing like suns. Amon fled, rocketing across the harbor on his pillar of water. The Avatar simply raised one hand and swept it down. A torrent of air formed, dozens of yards away from her, and crashed into Amon, sweeping him off his self-made transport and slamming him against the walkway leading to the arena hard enough to crack the stone. The false revolutionary struggled to his feet and began bending the water in the harbor furiously, hurling tendrils of water and spears of ice at the Avatar as quickly as he could.

She simply waved her arms, summoning unimaginable gusts with each movement, sending the water crashing back into the harbor, shattering the ice and unknowingly blowing the still-razor-sharp fragments near the crowds at either end of the walkway. She held her hands before her and parted them, two great lines of air forming and sweeping Amon's attacks aside, the residual force of the air blowing garbage and hats away several blocks down. The Avatar thrust a hand out as she dove towards Amon, a giant ball of air knocking him flat against the ground. She flew close, hovering over him, and he moved, drawing dozens of shards of ice from the harbor. Few made it through the whirling ball of air that surrounded the Avatar, and those few that did were picked to harmless flecks after barely a second inside. The Avatar circled around Amon, and raised one hand, the air forming beneath the waterbender to lift him up. The Avatar drew back her hand, then thrust it forward, blasting Amon clear across the walkway, straight into and through the second floor of the arena, the torrent of air carrying the bender cleaving a wide hole in the building. With a burst of air, the Avatar flew after her prey.

* * *

Amon landed in a heap in the middle of the pro-bending ring. He struggled to his feet and raised the water running through the hexagon structure, surrounding himself with it. The water began to glow, and his beaten body began to heal. Looking at the giant hole formed by his entrance, he saw a few pieces of debris fly through, and knew he had to act. He swept his hands up and forward, calling on all of his strength. An enormous wave flowed up, drawn from the ring and the water beneath it. Amon waited for a few seconds, then hurled the mass forward as the Avatar barreled into the room.

By some miracle, he'd managed to catch her off-guard, and she flew straight into his attack. She was blasted into the stands, now struggling against the torrent of water pressing against her. Amon shifted his tactics, keeping the water flowing but forming spears of ice and launching them at the Avatar. He knew they wouldn't make it through her shield of air, but he could work around that now. He felt the ice as it was chipped to shreds going through the vortex surrounding the Avatar, and he forced each spear, again and again, to reform and move. A echoing yelp, as all Amon could see of the Avatar through the torrent of water were her still-glowing eyes, let him know his tactic was working. He redoubled his efforts, summoning more and more spears.

* * *

Tiny spears of ice, reforming again and again, cut against her arms and face and legs. The torrent of water that had caught her by surprise kept her in place, the simultaneous attacks keeping her from focusing enough to literally blow them aside. Korra felt one spear stab into her face, cracking against her cheekbone, and for just a second, lost control of the vortex around her. The dozens of tiny, razor-sharp fragments coalesced into a single jagged icicle the size of a knife and shot into her chest. She felt a pain unlike any other, as though this one instance of hurt was magnified across a thousand lifetimes. Memories, her own and of those she somehow recognized as the ones who came before her flashed in her mind. Mako's twisted, broken form ran through her personal memories, and that was all she needed to see.

Kora swirled her hands and thrust them out, air slicing and shattering the icicle half-inside of her chest, blasting the stream of water back. She shot up on a gust of air, spinning, drawing her fist back, the air around her mimicking her movements, the icicle still inside her melting into water and running out of the wound. She could see Amon, standing, dumbfounded and more than a little terrified, in the center of the ring.

She swung her clenched fist down and the air followed, slamming into the ring with such force that a shockwave of dust and wind shot into the stands, cutting through seats and slicing deep gouges in the stone. The ring itself shattered beneath the sheer force of her attack, breaking into pieces that were blasted down into the lower platform. She floated towards the wreckage, quickly finding Amon's broken form. Waving an arm, she blew away some of the debris surrounding him. She reached down with one hand through the whirling ball of air surrounding herself and grabbed Amon's coat, lifting him up off the ground with barely any effort. She slowly pulled him closer to the whirling ball of air surrounding her. Random, uncontrolled blasts and gusts whirled off it, punching deep into the walls and slicing through the metal fragments of the ring like paper. A small gust passed just in front of Amon, cutting right through the bridge of his nose. Korra pulled him closer, his head tilting, another small gust slicing into his chin, leaving a bleeding line. Amon winced in pain, and seemed to come to, eyes widening in fear.

Korra tightened her grip and prepared to pull him completely through.

"KORRA!"

The last voice she expected to hear screamed her name. Korra spun her head around, and saw Mako, still grimacing in pain, propped against the hole in the arena wall, looking at her with surprise, awe, and what almost looked like…

She stopped, and looked around, truly seeing what was around her. What she'd done, what she'd been about to do. The pro-bending arena, the place where she'd trained and fought so often, met Mako and Bolin and Asami, was in ruins. And Amon… she'd been about to… She looked at him, at his beaten, bleeding form, still held up in her grip, hardly inches from being cut to ribbons. She turned her head again, looking back at Mako, seeing what he saw her doing.

The whirlwind around her bled away into the air, the glow in her eyes faded, and she let Amon drop, moaning, to the ground.

She wasn't consciously aware of it, but her hands reached up to cover her mouth, muffling the cry she was making out of pure instinct. Korra gazed at what she'd done, and dropped to her knees, the prospect of everything else she could have already done burrowing through her mind's eye.

**So, Legend of Korra so far is pretty fantastic (I'm actually in the middle of Book 4, as it's been a few days since I started working on this (college has a way of becoming a time-pit)) but it is so far sorely lacking in one of the coolest bits from The Last Airbender. Terrifying, ultra-powered, elemental-cruise-missile-launched-from-the-vengeful-finger-of-God uncontrollable Avatar State rampages. As for how the airbending comes off as so destructive, Aang blew up a building just by standing around being angry in the Avatar State in the second ever episode of the series. I'm pretty sure a proper, good-and-pissed Avatar in the Avatar State with only access to airbending is going to make use of it in decidedly destructive and violent ways. Air also strikes me as getting a little shortchanged in Avatar in general. High-speed winds alone can utterly ruin a town if there's enough of 'em; imagine what happens when someone has the power to acutely weaponize wind, then goes thermonuclear in a sense. Air can do a lot more than throw people around and make apparently harmless twisters. Air can tear shit up. **

**There'll probably be at least another two chapters, that might make mention to this one, but they also might just be standalone one-shots. All chapters will just be based on ideas I had of things to have happen in the show. Or things I thought should've happened. **


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